THE Royal Oldham is to become a 'centre of excellence' for the treatment of cancer.

THE Royal Oldham is to become a 'centre of excellence' for the treatment of cancer.

The move is part of a radical shake-up of adult NHS hospital services run by the Pennine Acute Trust, and affects 800,000 people across Oldham, Bury, North Manchester, Rochdale, Heywood and Middleton.

Oldham appears to have come out well under the provisional restructure, with its acute medicine and accident and emergency services retained - along with those presently provided at Fairfield General, Bury, and North Manchester General.

Rochdale Infirmary is to lose its emergency services and become one of the country's first 'locality hospitals' - focusing on a range of services not usually provided at a single location, such as dental, mental health and social services.

Rochdale's emergency department will be replaced by an urgent care centre, which will still be able to treat 80 per cent of patients currently seen at A&E.

Emergency surgery will continue at the Royal Oldham and also be made available at North Manchester.

Each of the four hospital sites are to become 'centres of excellence' for some in-patient services. The reasoning behind this is that it will stop expert staff, skills and equipment being spread too thinly across too many sites.

The hospitals will be supported by improved primary care, with 35 new community health centres proposed.

Of the eight centres planned for Oldham, the one in Moorside is already operational with work on the Glodwick facility and a central care centre under way.

Dr Zuber Ahmed, an Oldham GP and chairman of Oldham Primary Care Trust's professional committee, said: "I think the potential changes will be huge, important and very exciting for the town. If the changes do take place we will be seeing more specialised services at the Royal Oldham. Early examples of that are the cancer centre.

"To do all that we have to work very hard to do some of the things currently done in a hospital setting in a community setting. Everything we hear from people is that 'we want to see the best care available and as locally as possible' - this option will allow us to deliver that."

The decision was in line with the preferred option put forward as part of the 'Healthy Futures' review - a five-month public consultation that 4,000 people responded to.

Dr Ahmed said: "In everything we heard this is the option that most people in Oldham favoured. We are delighted.

"It is inevitable that as Oldham becomes a bigger and more specialised hospital, other people from the sector (Bury, North Manchester, Rochdale) will be travelling for parts of their care in Oldham.

"We have been clear from the start that if Royal Oldham is doing more for people outside the borough we don't want to see the care that the local residents get suffer.

"The teams will be bigger and more specialised in the hospital so the quality we get localised will be far better. It is up to us that standards are maintained."

It is estimated that it will take at least five years for all the changes to come into effect and the decision to proceed will not be formalised until a second public consultation into children's and maternity services is completed.